Miles to go before I sleep
by Emjen Enla
Summary: [Complete] Khalid realizes that this sleeplessness thing has officially gotten out of hand the day that he walks into his chambers and sees Ava standing in the center of the room. Or the one where Khalid hallucinates his dead first wife. She's not happy.


**I don't own the Wrath and the Dawn. Title is from "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost. This story is set after tWatD but anytime before the chapter "A Perfect Balance" in tRatD.**

**I've wanted to write something for this duology for years but never got around to it. The beginning of this scene was intended as part of a larger work and has been sitting in my Google Docs for a while, yesterday I decided to just finish the scene and leave it at that. I'd like to continue exploring this, because the effects of Khalid's sleeping curse are often overlooked in the books, especially in tRatD, but who knows if that will actually happen.**

* * *

_The woods are lovely, dark and deep, _

_But I have promises to keep, _

_And miles to go before I sleep, _

_And miles to go before I sleep._

_-_from "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost

* * *

Khalid realizes that this sleeplessness thing has officially gotten out of hand the day that he walks into his chambers and sees Ava standing in the center of the room.

He imagines that some people might panic upon seeing their dead first wife standing in the middle of their room, but Khalid barely allows himself to react. He knows she's not actually there, that this is just the madness that the _faqir_ has been going on about. The episode with the shadows the night Shahrzad shared his bedchambers has taught him to be wary of his own senses, and Ava showing up is considerably less believable than those shadows were. He reminds himself that he found this woman's body hanging in her chambers almost a year ago, and heads for his desk without another look at her.

"So, you're just going to ignore me?" Ava asks, her voice stronger than it had been in life. "You ignored me when I was alive and now you're going to ignore me when I'm dead too?"

He fights back a wince and reminds himself that this is not Ava. Ava is dead, nothing he does or doesn't do will affect her now.

"I really mean that little to you?" Ava demands.

The painful thing is that he's really not sure how he feels about Ava. He knows he wasn't in love with her, and he suspects he never could have been, at least not the way he's in love with Shahrzad. However, he did care about her, and he suspects that if they'd met as friends with a talkative third person to fill in the silences, they might have grown to like each other. He and Ava saw the world too much alike, and it's only in these last few months that he's realized just how alike that is.

He pushes that thought away before it can completely form. He's been doing a good job of not thinking about that since the night when he tried to convince Shahrzad to take her revenge for Shiva and kill him. They never had a chance to talk about it, and that's something Khalid is deeply thankful for; he is fully aware that mentally healthy people do not try to convince their loved ones to kill them. He does not want to have that conversation with anyone, especially since once Shazi decides to talk about that it's only a matter of time before Uncle Aref finds out and that is something Khalid would rather never have to face.

"You are pathetic," Ava snarls. "Contemptible. You really think that you can be forgiven for what you've done? You killed me, and you killed seventy-one other women, and you really think you can come back from that? That trying to save one girl makes everything better?"

"She loves me," Khalid whispers, fully aware that answering a figment of his sleep deprived subconscious is probably a terrible idea.

"Why is that what matters?" Ava shoots back, she circles the room so she is standing in Khalid's peripheral vision. He doesn't turn away again. "You've killed seventy-two other wives why is the one moronic and deluded enough to want _you_ the only one who deserves to be saved?"

"I don't know…" Khalid whispers. She's right. Why didn't he save Ava or Shiva or any one of the other innocent women forced to marry him? Why did all those women have to die for his failings but Shahrzad's loss is too much to take? Is everything he has done for Shazi even more contemptible in the face of all the women he didn't even attempt to save?

Ava steps in close to him. "You should have killed yourself the instant all this started," she hisses in his ear. Her voice full of contempt she never had in life. He knows she's not real, but his mind thinks it can feel her breath on his ear. He almost thinks he could reach out and touch her. "You don't deserve to be alive. All you do is cause pain to good and innocent people. You corrupt everything you come into contact with."

Again she is right. When has association with him not ended badly? His father was convinced Khalid wasn't his son, and that destroyed his mother. His selfishness and inability to just love Ava the way he was supposed to killed her. His curse destroyed Uncle Aref's life by putting him in the position of having to argue for the pointless murders of a hundred innocent girls. Khalid destroyed Jalal's relationship with Despina. He murdered seventy-one young women and ruined their families. Over time the shear weight of his horribleness with eat away at Shahrzad and ruin her too. He is the plague, he is the one who destroys everything.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, pressing his palms to his eyes. His head throbs. He is so tired. He just wants this to all be over. "I'm so, so sorry."

Ava continues talking, spewing vitriol. Khalid keeps his hands pressed to his eyes. He wants to cover his ears, but stops himself. He deserves to hear everything she has to say to him. He deserves to be reminded over and over again how horrible he is.

"Khalid!"

The voice makes him jump. It is not Ava's. It is a man's voice, familiar but not his own. Suddenly, hands are gripping his wrists and pulling them away from his face. The _shahrban_ of Rey is staring at him with open concern. "Khalid-_jan_," he says. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

The use of his name with a term of endearment tells Khalid how worried his uncle is. Aref al-Khoury does not often fail to use the proper honorifics when addressing his nephew. He must be very scared.

_I'm sorry,_ Khalid wants to tell him. _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I've ruined everything and I know I can't ever make it better._ He holds himself back out of sheer force of will. The _shahrban_'s arrival has not dissipated the hallucination of Ava. She stands just inside his peripheral vision, quiet but watching with an expression of disdain. He fights to keep from turning his head to look at her fully. He reminds himself that looking at something no one else can see will not help make Uncle Aref less worried.

The _shahrban_ studies Khalid's face intently for a moment. "I'm calling the _faqir_," he announces.

"I'm alright," Khalid argues weakly, still trying desperately not to look at Ava.

"Liar," Ava snarls. "Nothing is fine and it's all your fault. You've ruined everything."

He can't help it, he flinches and glances in her direction. He doesn't say anything but that is still enough to tip Uncle Aref off about what's going on.

"Khalid-_jan_," He takes Khalid's face between his hands and forces him to look away from Ava. "It's not real," he says. "Whatever you're seeing, it's not there. Focus on me: I'm really here."

Ava snorts. "Sure, let one of your victims give you a reason to stop listening to me. Go right ahead."

Khalid doesn't know how to tell his uncle that he knows Ava's not real but that everything she's saying is. He doesn't know how to explain that he can't just ignore her as an untruth because that would be the same as ignoring the truth. He doesn't know how to say anything at all. He fights back the sudden and pathetic urge to cry. What gives him the right to weep when he is the monster here?

The _shahrban_ guides him over to his bed, whispering soothing nothings. Ava ghosts along behind them watching with open scorn. Khalid allows his uncle to ease him down until he's lying on the bed. It feels good. Even though he can't sleep it's nice to put his head down and not have to focus so much attention on staying upright.

The _shahrban_ gets a blanket from the dresser and drapes it over Khalid's body. He hadn't even realized that he was shivering until then. It's odd. It's the middle of the day and even inside it is far from cold. Uncle Aref presses a hand it to Khalid's forehead and frowns. "You might be running a slight fever."

"I'll be fine, Uncle," Khalid says because he needs to say something and that's almost not a lie. He will be fine, probably. Maybe.

The _shahrban _purses his lips and Khalid knows what the man was thinking. Uncle Arefand the _faqir_ have both given up on convincing Khalid to just go through with the terms of the curse, but that doesn't mean that they don't still have doubts about this course of action. If Khalid is honest with himself he is starting to have some too. Not that he wishes he hadn't chosen to grant Shazi mercy, he will never wish that, but he is becoming increasingly aware that the current state of things is not sustainable. With every passing day without sleep the _faqir_'s magic becomes more and more ineffective. One day it may cease to work all together.

The human body is not meant to go for months without sleep and Khalid's body is weakening by the day. The fact that he's hallucinating his dead wife aside, the headaches are constant and only barely helped by the _faqir_'s treatments these days. His stomach has been giving him problems for months and the combination of that and stress has nearly completely stolen his appetite. The _faqir_ has warned that his body's defenses against illness are weakening which is no doubt why the _shahrban _is so worried about the possibility of him having a fever. Things are going downhill quickly; something needs to change.

The _shahrban _tucks the blanket tightly around Khalid's body and looks into his face. "Will you be alright for a moment while I find a guard to send for the _faqir_?" He asks.

Khalid nods. The movement makes his head throb even more viciously.

The _shahrban _leaves the chamber to find a guard and Ava steps up alongside the bed. "You can use magic to get rid of me all you want, but you can't escape the fact that I'm right," she says.

"I know," Khalid says huddling deeper under the blanket. "I know you're right." Despite knowing that he can do nothing but stare at the inside of his eyelids, he closes his eyes and allows the sheer weight of his exhaustion to overwhelm him for just a moment.

He is so incredibly tired of being awake.


End file.
